(16e) F D M E (2,5-Furandicarboxylate, DiMethyl Ester) Process Development: Scale-up through Pilot

DuPont Industrial Biosciences and the Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) company are in a strategic partnership to develop and commercialize a new process to produce renewable FDME from corn-derived fructose. This newly commercial monomer is the dimethyl ester of 2,5-furan dicarboxylic acid (FDCA), which along with existing renewable diols such as BioPDO (1,3-propanediol) and ethylene glycol, can be polymerized to make a new family of bio-based furanic polymers (DuPont Everact^TM) including polytrimethylene furandicarboxylate (PTF) and polyethylene furandicarboxylate (PEF). These polyesters are of interest because of their enhanced gas barrier properties relative to incumbent polymers used in the beverage, food, and industrial packaging markets such as poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), and they provide opportunity for improved shelf life and decreased overall material use in packaging applications where O₂ and CO₂ permeation is critical.

This presentation will provide an overview of the process as well as the scale-up methodology being employed to develop an economically-viable FDME manufacturing process. The presentation will include a summary of best practices incorporated into the design phase such as internal third-party technical reviews of conceptual process designs and development of a dynamic process model to develop control strategies, tune process controllers, and train operators. Finally, we’ll summarize the structured risk assessment and mitigation methodology employed to identify and address key technical risks to commercialization.